


Don't Say A Word

by Artemis_Day



Series: Scientific Soulmates [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bonus Scenes contain:, Convenient Avengers Tower Character Congregation, Darcy Lewis Is a Good Bro, Double Penetration, Drama, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Jane Foster is insecure, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Masturbation, Mild Sexual Content, Multi, Mutual Masturbation, Romance, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Sub Jane, Sub Steve, Threesome - F/M/M, Vaginal Fingering, background Tony/Pepper, basically they're just porn, dom bucky, don't read if you don't want to read porn, eventually, or at least the discussion of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-05-13 18:28:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5712625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis_Day/pseuds/Artemis_Day
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a string of failed relationships, Jane Foster is ready to hang in the towel and enjoy life as a single woman.  Then she found her soulmates, and it turns out they're a pair of super soldiers whose love is as legendary as the battles they fought.  When faced with an impossible situation, there's only one thing Jane can do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ever Heard of Knocking?

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, I intended for this to be a oneshot. Then I got to the end and realized that my so-called oneshot was about 17,000 words and 37 pages long. Since I don't really feel like posting another monster fic, I've decided to split the story into five parts. Each new part will be posted every other day as I edit them.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It's my first ever threesome fic, so it goes without saying I'm pretty excited.

Jane Foster had a certain routine.  She liked to start each new day with a hot cup of coffee (or five), a fluffy breakfast roll, and a stack of new data to comb over while she ate.  After that, it was down to the lab for another day of research and closing in on the answer to creating Earth’s bifrost.  As long as she stuck to that very simple schedule, she’d have a few hours in the evening to cozy up and read until her eyes grew too heavy and the fire burnt out.  Perfectly quiet and peaceful.  That was how Jane liked it.

Lately, she’d been able to pull it off without a hitch. Days when she couldn’t usually started with an accident.  If not that, then a crisis involving supervillains that required all civilian residents of the tower to hide on the basement levels until the Avengers had sorted it out.  Sometimes, it was both.

Today, it was neither.

Today, Jane lost roughly ninety percent of her coveted breakfast research time—which also meant the loss of her equally coveted reading time—because of a battery.

More specifically, the uncharged battery of her cell phone that she was supposed to plug in to charge overnight.  Otherwise, the damn thing would die on her while she was sound asleep and not blast a jaunty horn number in the morning to rouse her into wakefulness.

And so, Jane rolled out of bed more than an hour later than she should have, scrambled to get dressed and out of her apartment, and got nothing but rug burn and burnt toast for her troubles.

By the time she got to her lab, Jane’s mood could not have been worse.  She threw open the windows to let the light stream in and turned on some music, a fair attempt to counter her frustration.  The music was a habit she’d picked up from Tony.  Having worked in fairly close quarters with him for the past few months, it was only natural that she’d learn a few things, and that some of those things wouldn’t be all that science related. 

Unlike Tony, whose iTunes library consisted entirely of heavy metal and classic rock, Jane preferred something slower and more soothing for her work time.  Pounding drums and shredding guitars would only shatter her concentration, but orchestral strings and echoing vocals gave her the same kind of peace she got from listening to the crickets and the howling coyotes back in Puente Antiguo.  The sun was warm on her skin and the eatheral music eased her frustrations, and Jane could say that she was over her mess of a morning and ready to go on with the day as normal.

Then the door opened.

“Oh, Jaaaaane~!”

Jane dropped her notebook back onto the desk and closed out her windows.  Now the work day was really over.

“Morning, Darcy,” she said.  “I thought I gave you the week off.”

“Aren’t I technically not your official intern anymore?” Darcy countered, making her way to her usual workspace next to Jane.  “I got my credits in over a year ago.  I’m here now because I want to be, and because I’m afraid that if I’m ever not here, you’ll start jumping through portals to Mars or trying to establish contact with hostile alien forces or something crazy like that.”

Jane shot her a look, but found she had no energy to respond verbally and left it at that.  She returned to her computer, watching it spit out data while she doodled circles onto a sheet of notebook paper.  Any second now, Darcy would say the one thing Jane did not want to hear.

Any second now…

“So what are you doing later tonight?”

And there it is.

“I’ll be working all night,” Jane said, making a show of typing some gibberish into her laptop.  “I’ve got a lot to catch up on.”

“I doubt that,” Darcy snorted.  “No offense, Jane, but ever since you and Thor split, you’ve been kind of a workaholic.  Like more than usual, I mean.”

“Darcy, I’m trying to create an Einstein-Rosen bridge,” Jane said.  “I’m working mainly by myself, and I’m more or less starting from scratch.  I don’t have time to fool around going to clubs or whatever it is you want me to do.”

“Technically, it’s not a club, it’s a bar,” Darcy said, as if that was supposed to make it better, “and there are always a ton of hot singles hanging around.”

“I’m not interested.”

“Well, even if you don’t find someone to go home with, I might.  Come on, Jane, I need my wingman!”

“So go ask Pepper or Natasha to go with you.”

“I can’t do that.  For three reasons.”  Darcy held up one hand and proceeded to tick each one off.  “One: they scare me.  Two: I’m not on first name basis with them like you apparently are.  Three: You are my best friend, and I want you to go out and have fun and stop moping around over Mr. Golden God of Biceps just because he likes warrior chicks better than science chicks.  Who cares?  There are plenty of other fish in the sea, and some of them are literally superheroes.  You could bag one if you just put yourself out there.”

“Darcy, I-“ Jane started to stand, only to get tangled in a loose wire.  She struggled with it for a moment, while Darcy looked on, raising an eyebrow.  It finally came undone, and Jane kicked it aside.  That was the third time in a week.  “I get that you’re trying to help, but I’m fine, Darcy.  Thor and I broke up months ago. It’d be pretty pathetic if I was still hung up on him half a year later.”

“And yet you’re in this lab every night.”

“ _Working_ in this lab every night,” Jane shot back.  “And what has it gotten me?  Oh yeah, unlimited funding and a shot at the Nobel Prize.  I think that’s a bit more impressive than a boyfriend would be.”

“I never said anything about impressing people.”  Darcy leaned back in her swivel chair.  “Besides, what good is all of the success if you have no one to share it with?”

Jane let out a long, loud, exhausted sigh.  She was starting to think she should say yes just to get Darcy off her back so she could return to her work.  That wouldn’t be good, though.  She’d have to struggle for an excuse to bow out later, and Darcy would give her hell for it if Jane was too transparent.   That, or she’d come up with a plan B.

“How about this?  We forget the bar, and instead, I get you the info on one of those mixer parties for people with soulmarks.  I hear there are even ones specifically for people in triad relationships.”

Jane’s eye began to twitch.  That was always Darcy’s plan B.

 “I don’t know if that’s a good idea…”

“Oh, what’s the problem now?” Darcy cried.  “I mean, I get your objections to the bar, but having a soulmate pretty much guarantees you a successful romance.  You’ve got two of them.  That means double the romance and double the success!”

“Or double the work,” Jane said.  “Double the fighting; double the heartbreak if it doesn’t work out.  I know you think soulmates are romantic, Darcy, but that’s only because you don’t have one.  Just because you do doesn’t mean you’re going to live happily ever after.”

“Weren’t your parent’s soulmates?”

“Yes, and they fought just as much as any non-soulmate couple would.  About all the same things, too.”

“But they were happy together, weren’t they?”  Darcy got up and started to walk.  “I bet their fights ended in hugs or make-up sex.  My parents weren’t soulmates.  Their fights ended in divorce.  If you’ve got a shot at avoiding that, then you owe it to yourself to take it.”

“Darcy, even if I was actively searching, the odds of finding not one, but two soulmates are so low that it’s not even worth pursuing.  Why do you think there are so few completed triads out there?”

“Because everyone has the same ultra-negative ‘I can’t’ attitude as you?”

“Okay, I going to go get some lunch.”

Jane left Darcy to stick her tongue out at her and loudly lament at what a ‘Negative Nancy’ her boss could be.  She entered the long, winding halls of the tower where hundreds of people walked every day.  In the months since moving in, Jane never saw the same face twice, and with soulmarks on the brain, she couldn’t help but wonder how many of them had words stamped somewhere on their bodies.  How many had found their soulmate already?  How many were even looking?  How many would never find them at all or came so close to meeting the right person once, only for fate to decide it wasn’t meant to be after all?

The best part was that this was going to be on Jane’s mind for the rest of the day now.

Perfect.

**

When Jane was a little girl, her mother used to joke that her two soulmarks were placed on either of her hips so that she’d have room for both of them to hold her at night.  It wasn’t a very funny joke, or even one that made sense—they could still do that if her marks were somewhere else—but back then, it had made the starry-eyed five year old happier than she’d ever been.  She’d go to sleep at night and dream about being a princess with two handsome knights leading her through a field of flowers, which they would lay in together while she told them all about the stars and what she read in her father’s books.  Long after she’d grown out of princess fantasies, that dream would still come every now and then, all the way up to her college years.  By then, Jane was mature and practical enough not to base her romantic future on whether or not some guy said the words on her hip.

She was even ready to get married once, and live a happy, monogamous life with one man who respected her and cared for her.  Then Donald Blake took her to a fancy five star restaurant for their two year anniversary, and the waitress said the words written on Don’s forearm.  That was the end of that.

Now that she’d failed once again to find lasting love, and with an actual prince no less, Jane was thinking she had better take a step back from relationships and focus on her work more.  Her work, at least could never leave her (obtrusive bureaucratic government agencies or no).  That was why she never bothered to go out with Darcy, or attend one of those soulmate finding parties.  The way she saw it, if she happened to find one or both of them, then great.  If not, then oh well.  That’s just how life goes sometimes.

Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing. 

“In trouble again?” Jane asked as Tony Stark shuffled into the lounge with a pillow, a blanket, and a gloomy disposition.    

“I told Pepper I didn’t want to go to her mother’s birthday party,” he said, flopping down on the couch with his eyes on the ceiling.  “I don’t get it.  The woman hates me.  Pepper knows that she hates me, and yet she still insists that I go and spend time with her three or four times a year.  I send her a new luxury car every Christmas.  That should be enough.”

“Maybe she wants you and her mother to get along,” Jane suggested.  “Like beyond the whole luxury car thing.”

“If that was a possibility, it would have happened by now,” Tony said.  “I’ve known Pepper for fifteen years, been dating her for three, and if in that time, Mrs. Potts can’t accept the fact that I’m Pepper’s soulmate and I’m not going anywhere, there’s nothing I can do about it.  Except maybe buy her a plane.”

Tony looked thoughtfully off into the distance, perhaps thinking of exactly how he could pull that one off.  Knowing him, it wasn’t likely to end with Pepper’s mother warming up to him, and extremely likely to involve a lot of collateral damage to public property and Pepper frothing at the mouth with anger.  As always when Tony got like this, Jane wisely kept it to herself.

She scooted over, making room for him to lay out his blanket on the couch.  For a moment, Jane wondered why he’d be going to bed so early in the evening.  Then she checked her phone and it was past two in the morning.  Her body clock really was shot.

“By the way, have you seen Bruce around?” Jane asked.  “I wanted to talk to him about some new research I’ve been doing, but I can’t find him.”

“You’re not going to.  He’s on ‘vacation’ again.  Even I don’t know where he is or when he’ll be back.”

“Another spiritual journey?”

“Something like that.”  Tony shrugged.  “Whatever helps him, I guess.  I just hope he’ll send a card this time.  You want to know more, I’d ask Capsicle.  I saw Bruce talking to him right before he left.”

“I wouldn’t know where to find him either,” Jane said.

Tony blinked.  “Oh yeah, you and Cap haven’t been introduced yet, have you?”

“I haven’t had much time to socialize lately.  I don’t think I’ve met even half the people who live here.”

“Eh, I don’t blame you.  You _are_ a big important scientist now, and Cap _has_ been pretty busy with that boyfriend slash fellow Popsicle of his.  I don’t think I’ve had a proper conversation with him in a month; he’s always running off with Barnes.”

“Well, they are soulmates.  You of all people should know how that is.”

“I guess.”

Tony turned onto his side, facing the cushions.  He grumbled something about getting more comfortable furniture and fell asleep with Pepper’s name on his lips.  It was sweet, Jane thought.  An hour from now, Pepper would find him in here, because she’d have gotten just as lonely lying in bed without him.  Tony would wake up to find her curled up against him and tucked under his arm, and he’d be content to stay and watch her sleep for another hour or so before she finally stirred.

Over the past few months, Jane had seen the whole scene play out so many times that she knew it by heart.  First they’d fight, then Tony would leave, then Pepper would miss him, then they would (loudly) make up.  She didn’t know if it was what she would call an ideal love, but it worked for Tony and Pepper.   What they had was unique and uniquely theirs.  Jane believed whole-heartedly that they would last forever, soulmate or no.  Because in their own weird way, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts were simply perfect for each other.  Soulmates in every sense of the word.

Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes could only be the same way, if even better.  Though Jane had never spoken to either of them, she had seen them from afar.  They were hard to miss, both large and broad and always together.  Whenever Captain Rogers was talking, Barnes’ eyes never strayed away from him, and if something triggered Barnes’ memories of being held captive, Rogers was there without fail, holding Barnes close and telling him over and over again that he was safe now; it would be okay.  Between that, they could be found training together, eating together, or just trading jabs and playful insults.  The few times Jane bore witness to it, it had brought a nice little smile to her face.  There was a couple to aspire towards for sure.  If Jane could ever find someone who would love her like those two loved each other, she’d be a lucky woman. 

In a better world, that might have been Thor…

But no, no use lingering on that old relic of the past.  She and Thor had agreed that so much time apart and so little time together had killed the passion between them, and that they worked better as just good friends anyway.  It had been mutual, amicable, and left both parties satisfied and without regrets.  Thor would always have a place in Jane’s heart for making her dreams come true, and she would be the one who helped him become a better man.

He and Sif made a beautiful couple anyway.  They looked so happy all the time.  Happy like Tony and Pepper and Rogers and Barnes were happy.  What was it like to be so happy, Jane wondered.

Leaving Tony to dream and await Pepper’s arrival (by her count, it would be another twenty minutes), Jane exited the lounge and entered the hall that lead to the elevators.  The normally busy halls were close to deserted this late at night, but signs of life did remain.  A janitor was making rounds through the labs and meeting rooms, tossing all garbage into a big black bag.  A few of the live in technicians were performing routine maintenance, and one of the Avengers’ new team members—Sam Wilson, if Jane remembered correctly—was just leaving the gymnasium.  He gave her a smile and a nod as he passed, both of which Jane shyly returned.

The elevators were right behind a large metal door that prevented anyone without authorization from getting in or out.  Jane scanned her ID card and awaited the solid green light that would grant her access.  The door slid open.  Jane took one step before her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light and-

_‘Oh my god.  Oh my god.  Oh.  My.  God.’_

Steve Rogers. 

Steve Rogers was pressed up against the wall between cars four and five, covered in sweat with his shirt buttons undone. 

Bucky Barnes.

Bucky Barnes was holding Rogers’ arms above his head while sucking a spot on his neck and fingering his pants zipper.

Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, legendary soulmates, war heroes, and Avengers, were getting it on right in front of her.

Just like that, Jane’s night had gone from average mundane to something out of a softcore porn flick, and at the rate they were going, it wasn’t going to stay soft for much longer.

Jane’s mouth fell open.  She wanted to speak or squeak or scream, or maybe she didn’t.  Either way, her voice was gone.  The only way she could have let them know they weren’t alone would be if she made some kind of sound that her normal ears could never hear, but that their super enhanced hearing could pick up from a mile away.

All of a sudden, Barnes was moving off of Rogers, his piercing blue eyes going through Jane like bullets from a gun.  The two men stared at her, one with embarrassment and one with annoyance.  Once again, Jane thought about speaking, explaining that she hadn’t meant to interrupt them, she just wanted to get upstairs to her room and go to sleep, minding her own business about whatever it was they got up to.  She just couldn’t get her mouth to move, no matter how hard she tried.

That was when Barnes spoke first.

And the words he said, Jane’d had them memorized since she was a child.

“Ever heard of knocking?”

Something heavy fell down on Jane’s shoulders.  That was how she felt, weighed down by the force of what had just happened and what it could mean. 

No, that wasn’t the question.  Jane knew exactly what this was, she just couldn’t believe it.  The rational part of her brain said that it had to be a coincidence.  That was a perfectly common thing to say in response to this type of situation, and just because she had those exact words written on her left side didn’t necessarily mean that anyone who said them to her was automatically one of her soulmates.

If that was true, then Captain Rogers…

Captain Rogers…

Captain Rogers hadn’t spoken to her yet.  He was too busy staring at Barnes.

“Buck, don’t be rude,” he said.  “We knew there was a chance we could get caught doing this.”

He turned to Jane, who sucked in a breath.  This was the moment of truth.  It was very rare that Jane Foster prayed, but she did now.  She prayed that the next words out of his mouth would be anything ( _anything at all_ ) except-

“I’m sorry if we scared you, Dr. Foster.  It won’t happen again.”

_‘OH MY GOOOOOD!’_

In retrospect, Jane thought she had a perfectly reasonable response to the discovery that Captain America and the Winter Soldier were her soulmates.

She turned right around and ran like the wind.  She took the stairs up ten flights to her floor and didn’t lose energy until long after her body hit the mattress.


	2. I'm Going to Tell Them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here's part two!

Darcy found her the next day in the lounge, sitting at the bar with a drink in her hand. They were the only ones there, Tony having long since been guided back to his bedroom by Pepper's hand. Anyone else who might frequent this place must have had other business to attend to. Jane supposed it was a good thing. This was not the kind of conversation she wanted an audience for.

"I see you're up early," Darcy said, grabbing a drink menu. "And you're out of the lab. Excellent! That's a big step in the right direction."

Jane took another swig of her drink. It tasted terrible, but at least she wasn't replaying the night before in her mind on repeat anymore. Her head was getting too fuzzy.

"I had a… an interesting time last night," she said.

"Interesting as in… actually interesting or 'science' interesting or-"

"As in 'finding my soulmate' interesting."

Darcy nearly fell off her seat.

"Are you serious?" She was much too loud for how worn out Jane felt. In spite of staying in bed for seven hours straight, she'd barely gotten a wink of sleep. "Wait, did you find one of them or both?"

Jane didn't answer with more than a half-hearted smile. She knew Darcy would get it.

"Oh my god, Jane, that's amazing!" Darcy did a funny sort of jump for joy while still sitting. "Tell me about them. Who are they?"

Once more, Jane was quiet. She stared out the window at the sun shining over the Manhattan sky. Time dragged on like this as Darcy became increasingly antsy.

"Aren't you going to tell me?" she asked. Another few seconds passed, and Darcy took to waving a hand in Jane's face. "Anybody home? Earth to Jane. Need to hear about your soulmates now. Please respond. You're making me think they might be bad guys or something."

Oh boy, could Darcy go on once she got going. Not that Jane had anyone to blame but herself. She was the one who'd decided to tell her.

"No, they're not bad guys," she said. "Quite the opposite in fact…"

"Are they SHIELD guys?"

Jane bit her lip. She tried to meet Darcy's eye, but under her friend's scrutinizing gaze, that was becoming harder to do.

"It's… it's hard to explain," she said finally. Pathetically.

"How hard could it be?" Darcy asked. "It's not like your soulmates are-"

_"Steve Rogers and James Barnes."_

Jane shrieked. The world around her spun in circles, and the next thing she knew, she was staring up at the ceiling and her backside hurt like hell. Darcy kneeled over her, demanding to know if she was all right. Jane's heart pounded a mile a minute, roaring in her ears until she could hardly hear Darcy or the droning robotic voice over the loudspeaker.

_"Will Steve Rogers and James Barnes please report to the control room in ten minutes? I repeat. Will Steve Rogers and James Barnes—"_

"Jane, what is wrong with you?"

Darcy had all but shouted in Jane's face, her words like a slap, bringing her back to reality.

"Wha- I… I just…" She looked around, as if she could find some kind of explanation somewhere in this obnoxiously spacious room full of Tony Stark's things. "I just…"

"Just _what_?" Darcy said, throwing up her hands. "Because I'm trying to figure out why hearing some dumb overhead announcement would freak you out so mu-"

It hit Darcy in stages, so that Jane could track her progress in the second or two that she needed to get from Point A to Point D. First her eyes went wide, like they would literally pop out of her skull and roll out onto the floor. Then her shoulders sagged. She could no longer help Jane get back on her feet, leaving the scientist to do the job herself. Then her mouth opened, and a funny sort of squeak issued forth before Darcy regained the ability to form words.

"No way."

"Darcy," Jane said, taking her by the shoulders. "Before you say anything-"

"No. Fucking. Way."

"Just listen to me for a second, Darcy. You have to understand-"

"OH MY GOD JANE!"

Jane flew back as Darcy tackled her. The two of them fell onto to a nearby couch and Jane was lucky to have just missed knocking her head against the arm rest. Her cheek was smashed painfully into it, but try as she might, Jane couldn't move off of it. Not with Darcy squeezing her to death in a bone-crushing hug.

"Jane, you are the luckiest woman in the world," Darcy's grin was so big it was a wonder it fit on her face at all. "You have to tell me everything. When did you find out? What did they say? What did _you_ say? Why are you here and not getting laid right now?"

"Darcy, get off!" Jane pressed a hand into Darcy's chest, and with one big push, threw her off and onto the other side of the couch. To avoid get drawn back in, Jane paced across the floor space with her hands behind her back. "Look, it didn't happen the way you think it did. That's all you need to know."

"Like hell, it is," Darcy said. "And what do you mean, 'not the way I think'? If it happened in any way that didn't involve you getting the sex of a lifetime-"

"That's precisely how," Jane said, firmly. "I only found out because I… I caught them in kind of an awkward position."

"Awkward position, huh?" Darcy wriggled her eyebrows. "I know what that means, which again begs the question: why aren't you getting laid right now?"

Jane sunk down on the couch, wishing she could just disappear into the cushions for a while.

"You do know there's more to a relationship than just sex, right? You can't expect me to jump into bed with someone I don't even know all because of some words on my skin."

"Of course I don't," Darcy said seriously. "I expect you to jump into bed with them because they are both hotter than the sun. Have you seen Rogers' arms? Or Barnes's abs?"

Jane let out a groan that sounded like she'd been holding it in for hours, and maybe she really had been. If so, letting it out provided no catharsis. To top it all off, now her head was starting to hurt. She flopped down on her side, burying her face and one ear into the plushy cushions. Sadly, she could still hear Darcy.

"I guess if you're not ready, that's your prerogative." There was a shift in the weight on the cushions near Jane, and the next time Darcy spoke, she sounded much closer. "Good thing you're in a triad, so your boys can have each other until you're ready to join in."

Jane sat up, giving Darcy a miserable look that wiped the smile right off her face. This time, she understood in an instant.

"Wait a minute… did you not speak to them?" Darcy jumped up. "You've got to be kidding me! You found your soulmates— _both_ your soulmates—and you didn't even tell them?"

"It wasn't that simple," Jane muttered.

"What are you talking about? Of course it's simple. Here, I'll show you."

Darcy stood up straight and adopted a much higher pitch that didn't sound like Jane at all.

"Hello there, super soldier sex gods! It is I, Jane, your soulmate. I have come to you at last. You may now lavish me with affection and mind-blowing sex, preferably in my lab on one of the tables because I'm kinky like that-"

"Darcy, knock it off!"

Jane buried her face into the nearest pillow, fairly sure that if she got any redder, her head would turn into a beet.

Ceasing her posturing, Darcy sat on the armrest, crossing her arms as she observed her former boss over the rim of his glasses. Her eyes shifted ever so slightly to the left, her lips tugging up into a knowing smile.

"I guess you could be a little more subtle than that," she said, jerking her head at the half open door opposite them. "But if I were you, I'd figure it out quickly, because we've got company."

Jane raised the pillow. Her heart first sank and then sped up as Bucky Barnes appeared from behind a pillar. He was dressed casually today in jeans and a t-shirt. His hair was swept out of his eyes and it appeared that he hadn't grabbed a razor this morning. He was chatting with that man, Sam Wilson, the two of them chatting amiably as they approached the lounge. They were too far away for Jane to hear what they were talking about, but close enough for Bucky's laughter to ring out loud and clear, invading Jane's senses in a way that nothing before ever had.

She'd read somewhere a long time ago that people with soulmarks would often find themselves unconsciously drawn to their soulmate, sometimes before their words were said, but always after. As a scientist, Jane knew that she could hardly confirm that theory as true based on a single encounter, but there could be no other reason why she was so entranced by his deep blue eyes and plump pink lips when such thoughts had never before crossed her mind. Nor could there be an alternate explanation for the heat spreading through her as his huge arms and chest strained against his tight shirt. Her fingertips tingled with need to reach under there and feel his skin against hers.

Jane continued to stare in awe at Bucky, with his sexy laugh and bulging muscles, right up until it hit her that yes, he was actually there and about to see her. She pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle a yelp. Then she dived down onto her stomach, hidden from view behind the high arm rest.

"Did he see me? He didn't see me, did he?"

"I hope he did," said Darcy. Jane glared at her.

 _'Okay, come on, Jane,'_ she told herself. He was getting closer and closer, and it was only a matter of time before he saw her. _'Just relax and think. Relax and think… wow, look at his legs in those jeans. His thighs are so thick- no! No! Stop it! Dammit, you're a grown woman in your thirties, not a hormonal teenager.'_

In her mind, she was scrambling, thoughts going a mile a minute, yet still getting nowhere. Bucky's head seemed to turn in slow motion. Jane reacted at what had to be the last possible second, throwing her head down on the pillow and closing her eyes. For extra measure, she let out a long, phony snore, almost completely drowning out Darcy's hiss of, 'You can't be serious.'

"Hey, aren't you Darcy Lewis?" Bucky's voice said. Jane seized up. When the hell had he gotten so close?

And oh wow, his voice was as nice as his laugh.

"Er… yeah," Darcy said uncertainly. "You guys know my name?"

"Well, personally, I make a point of knowing the names of everyone who lives here," said Sam Wilson. "That, and Thor likes to tell the story of how you once tasered him at parties."

Jane heard Darcy chuckle.

"Oh does he? Yeah, good times. Good times…"

Something above Jane shifted and darkened, like a shadow cast over her.

"And this is Dr. Foster, right?"

_'Oh no…'_

"Why, yes it is!" Darcy exclaimed. "Hang on, I'll wake her up."

_'Darcy, NO!'_

"It's okay, I don't want to bother her while she's sleeping," said Bucky. The shadow of his body over her moved away, and the air around her grew colder. "Could you just tell her when she wakes up that I said I was sorry about what happened yesterday, and that I was so impolite?"

"Sure, no problem."

Sam pulled Bucky away then, reminding him that they had somewhere to be as they said goodbye. It was only when Jane was confident that they were gone, their steps and their voices having long since faded out of earshot, that she sat up and released a long breath. Her relief was short-lived. One look at Darcy, and Jane was shrinking back like a child about to be punished.

"You uh… you don't have to give me the message," she said weakly. "I heard it."

Darcy raised an eyebrow.

"Look, I'm going to tell him," Jane snapped. "I'm going to tell them both. I just… think it should be when the three of us are together. Alone. It's more intima- er, more _personal_ that way."

"And you're really going to tell them?"

"Yes, I am."

"You're not just saying that to get me off your back."

"Of course not!" Jane looked away. She was feeling less like an adult and more like an angry six year old the longer this went on. "I will tell them. I just need to wait for the right moment."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, Jane continues to fight against fate, and we start to understand a little better why.


	3. They're Perfect Together

Whatever the right moment was, it was not five hours later in the dinner hall when Jane was fishing a ten out of her pocket to pay for her grilled chicken salad and soda with.  Steve was just leaving, a large takeout bag swinging in his grip as he whistled a tune.  Jane froze when she spotted him, right in the middle of collecting her change from the checkout girl.

As with Bucky before, she was immediately assaulted by the blue of his eyes set in that classically handsome face.  His shoulders were so broad that they filled her vision, and fed into a narrow waist, giving him proportions most men could only dream of.  His biceps strained against the sleeves of his shirt in the most hypnotic way.  Hadn’t Darcy said something about his arms?  She sure wasn’t wrong.

He said hello to a few people walking by, but seemed to be alone.  They were in a room with at least a hundred other people, and yet somehow, he locked eyes with her.

“Dr. Foster?”

Jane raced through the crowd, almost dropping her dinner.  She threw up the hood of her jacket, disappearing into the swarm, and leaving Steve to scratch his head and (hopefully) decide it hadn’t really been her at all.

**

This time, both of them were together.  In fact, the whole Avengers team barring Thor and Bruce were together.  Steve led a discussion about some possible HYDRA cells found in the far East.  With Bucky ever present at his side, they argued loudly over strategy: how and when to infiltrate, containment, how to handle any possible civilian interference.  It was a lot of standard hero stuff that went way over Jane’s head.  She’d only been passing through on her way back to the lab, and as the meaning behind the team’s meeting became clear, she picked up the pace.  This was probably one of those ‘Heroes only’ things.

She was almost to the door—for once she appreciated her petite size and near silent footsteps—when something strange gave her pause.  Her ears picked up a low feminine voice, and she chanced a look to see that Steve was no longer speaking.  Agent Romanov had taken the floor.  Whatever she was saying went in one ear and out the other, for that was when Jane noticed one other important fact.

Steve and Bucky were both staring at her.

Jane didn’t want to look back.  She wanted to turn her head and continue on to the sanctuary of her lab, where four walls and a big heavy door protected her from things she wished not to think about.  She wanted to get as far away from those two as possible, before the heat rapidly building in the pit of her stomach caused her to lose her mind, jump into their arms and re-enact everything that had happened in her dreams last night.

And the way they looked at her, it was just so… Jane couldn’t describe it.  Their eyes followed her every step, wide and unblinking, as if in a trance.  If Jane didn’t know better, she’d think it was deliberate.  That somehow, someway, without her ever needing to speak a word to their faces, they just… _knew_.

But they couldn’t know.  Not yet.  Not for a long time.  Maybe not ever…

As Jane’s legs started to obey her again, she allowed herself a quick smile and a wave, and then she got the hell out of there.  She didn’t even wait to see if they returned them.

**

Two days later, Jane caught them in the middle of a date.

She had thought, rather foolishly in retrospect, that if she left the tower at its busiest time of day, she could avoid seeing them again.  She took to taking long walks in Central Park, or shopping in Times Square.  She even went out to the Statue of Liberty and climbed all the way up to the crown.  She got home at quarter to ten with a souvenir T-shirt and some tiny figurines.  She handed one of them to Darcy, who accepted the gift with a muted ‘thank you’ before quickly excusing herself. 

She’d been acting strange for a while, Darcy.  Almost a week had passed since that day in the lounge, and since then, she’d gone from following at Jane’s to barely acknowledging her at dinner and shaking her head every time Jane jumped behind the nearest large object before Steve or Bucky passed.  She had even stopped visiting the lab, not that Jane had been spending much time in there herself.

On this night, after a long day at the Planetarium, followed by a trip to Madame Tussaud’s wax museum to kill another two hours, Jane stopped at the nearest restaurant to grab a quick dinner.  It was a sports bar, reeking of beer and full of drunken hooligans shouting at the various games broadcasted on the rows of wide screen TVs.  Jane had to cover her ears and yell her order at the waitress.  It was not the kind of place she would ever expect a member of the Avengers team to frequent, much less two of them.

She had forgotten that Steve and Bucky were also two guys from Brooklyn.

They were two tables down and across from her, directly in her line of sight.  Jane had her menu over her face as she contemplated picking up and running without bothering to wait for her order.  Over the bombardment of cheers and beer tankards clinking, Jane had no hope of making out their hushed conversation.  They were huddled together, candlelight bathing their handsome faces in a golden glow.  They were so close, Jane thought it only a matter of time before their lips met.  As soon as the thought entered her mind, she dropped the menu and didn’t pick it up again. 

Her food arrived, and she ate it slowly, every bite deliberate.  She was hunched over her plate, using her long hair as a curtain to hide her face.  She looked up once in a while, just to make sure they hadn’t moved or seen her.  They’d taken to watching one of the games, a baseball game.  Their plates were gone and it looked like they were waiting on some desert before they left.  Jane noted the much nicer clothes they had on.  It didn’t fit the location at all, but looked so good on them that Jane wanted to slam her head against the wall.  As if one of them wasn’t bad enough.  Together, they were so hot it should be illegal.

“Ma’am?  Did you hear me?”

Jane jumped and looked up.  The waitress was standing over her table, frowning at her.

“Huh?  I’m sorry, I was a little distracted,” she said.

“I was just making sure that everything is okay,” said the waitress.

“Oh yeah, I’m good.  The food is all really good, thanks.”

“And will you be having any dessert?”

“Dessert?”  Jane cast one more glance at Steve and Bucky, now enjoying a huge bowl of chocolate ice cream.  Then Bucky got some on the side of his lip, and Steve leaned over to remove it with his mouth.  “I… think I’ll just have some decaf please.”

The waitress scribbled on her pad.  “One decaf coffee, and I’ll bring you the check as well.”

As soon as she was gone, Jane cupped her hands over her eyes.  If she positioned them just right, she couldn’t see an inch of Bucky as he pulled Steve by the collar to give him a proper, and obnoxiously long, kiss.  After that, she drank down her coffee as fast as she could and left cash payment on the table.  She threw on her coat and kept her collar up as she all but ran by.  They were so wrapped up in each other that they didn’t see her go.

Unfortunately, that meant they also didn’t see the greasy little man with the camera coming up just behind them.

He moved around Jane, no doubt expecting her to just keep walking like any other oblivious New Yorker would do.  So when she didn’t, he seemed to need a moment to process that she wasn’t leaving.

“You know, it’s rude to spy on people when they’re trying to have a moment,” she said.  “Let alone take pictures of them without permission.”

The little man looked at her through beady eyes behind thick glasses.  He had his hand on the camera flash, about to disable it.  Not that it would be enough to keep a pair of super soldiers from hearing the clicks of photos being taken.  Really, Jane was helping this man.  She was saving him from getting a metal fist in his face.

“If they wanted privacy, they shoulda stayed in that fancy tower,” the man drawled before waving Jane off.  “Now beat it, lady, I’m working here.”

He started to pass her again, his camera at the ready.  Soon, the beautiful moment Jane had borne witness to would be tarnished, all because of some nosy paparazzi.  The idea ignited something in Jane that, long ago, only the theft of her life’s work could’ve set off.  It was therefore only a half formed thought in her head to stick her foot out long after she’d already done it.  The man pitched forward, failing to break his fall by grabbing a tablecloth.  He took a small family’s dinner with him as he fell on his face.  His camera had slid into the corner by the TVs.  The cracked lens gave Jane a sense of deep satisfaction, as did crushing it under her shoe as she walked toward the exit with a spring in her step.  She never even saw the two pairs of eyes watching her go.

**

Jane woke up one morning with an itch in her throat that she couldn’t explain.  She tried several times to cough out whatever was bothering her, but the itch persisted.  It wasn’t until Tony stopped her in the hall to say hello, and her only response was a faint and hollow squeak, that she understood the problem.

“Just a simple case of laryngitis,” the doctor told her an hour later.  “Drink plenty of fluids and don’t try to speak, and you’ll be right as rain in just a few days.”

She told, or rather wrote, as much to the small gathering of her friends in the waiting area.  Tony wished her a swift recovery; Bruce helpfully produced a pad of paper and a pen; Darcy sat back, tapping out a drumbeat on the coffee table and saying nothing.  From then on, anyone jane had to talk to during the day first received a note carefully written in her messy shorthand explaining the situation.  Lucky for her, she had her lab to hide out in while she recovered, where she wouldn’t have to see or talk to anyone if she didn’t want to.

Come to think about it, why hadn’t she been doing that all along? 

She typed away on her computer, writing new equations and answering emails from colleagues, passing countless hours in blissful solitude.  She sent Erik a quick message upon receiving a voicemail, explaining why she couldn’t call him back and where she was in her research, and then her stomach rumbled.  Absently, she reached for the bowl of pretzels kept around for snacking during long work sessions.  She felt around the bottom, finding nothing but ceramic and some loose piles of salt.  Jane pulled the bowl into her lap with a sigh.  Of all the days to forget to refill it.

Grabbing her jacket, water bottle, and notepad, Jane left her lab to automatically lock itself and went in search of a more balanced meal.  She followed the familiar path from her lab to the elevators.  Reaching for her ID, she hesitated.  She waited for so long that when the doors did open, and a group of technicians walked out, Jane nearly drew blood biting her tongue to keep from screaming.  As they filed out, the elevator area was deserted.  Not a single soul to be found.  Jane rode down ten floors feeling like the tiniest noise could make her jump all the back to the twenty-eighth.

Tony had recently put in a full service food court on the main floor, complete with two pizzerias, a Chinese restaurant, and Subway.  A fresh tomato and bacon sandwich was starting to sound pretty good to Jane.  To get there, one had to walk past the fitness center where all the training rooms were located.  Jane liked to think it was a subtle way of discouraging people from immediately running to the McDonald’s.  There were a couple of people inside, running on the treadmills and lifting weights, but it was the two men trading punches in the main training room—the one that just happened to have a window taking up the entire south wall—who got her attention, and taught her two very important things.

The first was that, contrary to what she had spent her whole life believing, there was, in fact, a god.

The second was that God really hated her.

That was the only way Jane’s once purely scientific mind could explain this.  Why, after over a week of successfully avoiding them, she would find Steve and Bucky in the training room, shirtless, moving so fast they could hardly be seen.  Sweat poured.  Muscles flexed. 

It just wasn’t fair.

All thoughts of food flew right out the window.  Steve delivered a punch that Bucky deftly caught in his metal hand.  The gears whirred and spun.  Jane heard them through the crack in the side door right next to her.  He then kicked Steve’s feet out from under him, sending both of them tumbling to the ground.  They rolled around, hands all over the place, pulling at each other’s hair and ripping fabric.  It was clear that this fight was about to turn into something else entirely. 

The notepad slipped from Jane’s fingers.  Two heads immediately shot up, and Jane stumbled back with a gasp.  Even with all their enhancements, there was no way their hearing was so good that they could hear from behind a plated glass window.

Except… when Jane backed away, the window was exactly what her back hit against.  When she looked to the side, that door was ajar, and she was not on the same side of it that she had been a moment ago.

 _‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’_ she thought frantically.   _‘I literally walked in here to watch them without even knowing I was doing it?’_

 _‘Apparently so,’_ said another, unhelpful part of her brain.

“Hey there, Dr. Foster,” Bucky said.  He was on his feet before Steve and needed less time to straighten up and get his shirt back on.  “Seems you can never give us a moment alone, can you?”

It would have been a far more humiliating repeat of their first shared encounter, but at least this time, there was no anger in Bucky’s tone.  He seemed more amused than anything, and as Steve righted himself, the combination of their friendly grins and sweaty states were enough to make Jane feel like she would explode. 

“What’s the matter?” Steve asked after a period of silence.  “Cat got your tongue?”

The question brought Jane back to full awareness, and she scrambled to pick up her notepad and turn to the pre-written first page.  She held it up for the two of them to read.

“Laryngitis, huh?” Bucky clicked his tongue.  “That’s a shame.  Better hope you don’t meet your soulmate.”

_‘You don’t know the half of it.’_

“Well, since Buck and I are finished for the day, we were thinking about grabbing a bite to eat,” said Steve, rubbing some loose droplets out of his hair.  “After we’ve cleaned up, of course.  If you’re hungry, we’d love for you to join us.”

He looked so damn sweet and earnest.  Jane wondered how Bucky could resist just kissing him all the time until he lost his breath.  She fumbled for the pen in her jacket pocket and started to write out a polite refusal, but her stomach was faster than her hand.  It let out the long, loud whine that echoed the room.  And this place appeared to have stereo sound.

“I guess that answers that,” said Bucky.  “We’ll just be a few minutes if you want to wait right here.”

**

Against all logic and the furious urging of her voice of reason, Jane waited.  It was twenty minutes before they returned, freshly washed and dressed without a hair out of place.  Jane couldn’t be sure that they hadn’t taken a quick shower together before returning, and now that she had that image in her head, Jane knew exactly what she’d be dreaming about tonight.

The three of them strolled into the food court as the two related to Jane stories of their youth in the twenties and thirties.  Steve was all too happy to regale her with one particular tale in which Bucky attempted to impress their schoolyard friends by claiming he could throw twenty rocks in the blink of an eye, and then busting two windows upon being goaded into demonstrating.

“So out comes Mrs. Gorwin, the oldest, meanest teacher in the school,” Steve said, tightening his grip around the reddening Bucky’s shoulder, “and she was a lot faster than she looked, so before any of us know it, she’s right on top of Bucky, beating him with her ruler.”

“She wasn’t that fast,” Bucky grumbled.

 **‘Maybe you were just slow,’** Jane wrote.

“I think she’s got it,” said Steve.

The two of them laughed (or wheezed in Jane’s case), as Bucky turned away from them, muttering about being ganged up on before taking a huge bite out of his burger.

“Quit belly-aching, you jerk,” said Steve.  “Don’t you want to tell the lady some embarrassing stories about me now?”

Bucky smirked.  “Don’t push your luck, punk.  Because the stories I’ve got?  No one would look at Captain America the same way again.  Remember the clam dip incident on the Fourth of July?”

“Never mind.  Shut up.”

“Oh, so you can dish it out, but you can’t take it?  You hearing this, Doctor?”

**‘I’m hearing it, all right.’**

“Well, I can’t wait until Dr. Foster has her voice back.  Then we can hear all of her most embarrassing stories.”

The two of them laughed, and Bucky gently nudged Jane in a playful way.  All she could offer back was a weak half-smile.

An elderly cleaning lady walked up and down the rows of tables, collecting trays that had been left behind by careless patrons.  She reached their table, about to take the drink cup sitting between Steve and Jane, when the former stopped her.

“Sorry, Ma’am, I’m still drinking that,” he said.

The woman brought a hand to her face.  “Oh dear!  Please forgive me, young man, my eyes aren’t quite what they used to be.  I’m rather blind as a bat, I’ll admit.”  She put the drink cup back where she found it, stopping for a moment to linger on Bucky.  “That’s an interesting glove you’re wearing, dear.”

Bucky clenched his metal fingers before pulling his sleeve over them and coughing an awkward thank you. 

The woman started to back away, though her aging eyes never left them for a moment.  A smile brightened her wrinkly skin.

“Did you need something else?” Steve asked.

“Oh no, I’m fine,” the old woman said.  “I’m so sorry for staring.  It’s just that you three look so lovely together.  Has it been long since you found each other?”

Steve blinked, as did Jane, and finally Bucky.  He glanced at the other two for a moment.

“Er… sorry, we don’t really know what you mean.”

“Well, of course you’re a triad,” said the woman, who must have been really blind because she didn’t looked phased at all when Jane’s jaw dropped onto the table.  “You must be.  You look just like me and my old men when we were young.  Oh yes, Jack, Seymour, and me.  What a trio we were.  I could never have asked for two better men to spend my life with.”

The woman went off to her next table, so lost in her memories that she must have forgotten she had been talking to someone. Neither Steve nor Bucky had time to correct her (at least as far as they knew).  The strangest part—and the thing that made Jane extremely nervous and oddly hopeful—was that it didn’t look like they had intended to do it at all.

**

 **‘I’m on the twenty eighth floor,’** Jane wrote.  She then took back the pad and hastily scrawled a second message under it.  **‘Thanks again for buying lunch.  I promise I’ll pay you back.’**

“Don’t worry about it,” said Steve.  “Thanks to all the military back pay, we’ve both got more money than we could ever spend.”

“Just think of it as our way of paying you back for what you did at the restaurant.”

For the second time, Jane dropped her notebook.  Getting to her knees, she scrambled to pick it up, but in her haste she lost her pencil, and had to fish a spare out of her pocket.

**‘The restaurant?’**

“Yeah, you know, giving that reporter what for,” said Bucky.  “I would’ve beat the shit out of him myself, but since you got to him first, I think we owe you one.”

“Let us know if some nosy bastard ever tries to bother you,” said Steve.  “We’ll take care of it.”

**‘My heroes.’**

Bucky smirked.  “Just doing our job.”

The elevator dinged, but when the doors slid open, at least ten people were packed inside, and none of them looked happy at the prospect of another occupant, let alone three.

“It’s okay, we’ll take the next one,” Steve said.

He waited for the doors to close and for the car to reach the next floor before pressing the button again.  Jane watched the lights flash over the dozen or so elevator doors.  It was to her dismay that the next closest one was nine floors up, and traveled at a pace so slow, it might as well have been moving backwards.  The longer it took, the more time Jane spent with Bucky on one side of her and Steve on the other.  She was caught between the two of them.  If they wanted to reach out and touch, they would only find her in the way. 

“But that was something with that woman,” Bucky said, breaking the silence.  “I’m not sure what she was getting at, but it was kind of funny, wasn’t it?”

Jane’s fingers clenched around the pen so tightly, it was a wonder the thing didn’t snap yet.

“We actually do have a second set of soulmarks,” Steve said, looking pensively off into the distance.  “Not a lot of people know that.”

Jane gave him what she hoped was a look of surprise, releasing a breath when he seemed to buy it.

“Most people are shocked when we tell them,” said Bucky.  “They all think we’re this ideal couple because we met young and are still together.”

 **‘Ninety years is a long time,’** Jane wrote.

Bucky shrugged.  “I wish it really was that long, though I doubt I would have survived dealing with this guy all that time.  Did you know he once jumped on a grenade before he got the serum?  Damn idiot I got saddled with.”

“Love you, too, jerk.”

Bucky shot him a look, one that most would mistake for anger if they weren’t close enough to see the heat and the love in his eyes.

With shaking hands, Jane wrote:

**‘You guys really do seem perfect.’**

“Eh, we have problems just like everyone else,” Bucky said.

“We sure do,” Steve chuckled.

“But I guess I’m okay with a few more decades of watching his back.  Even if we never find our third, this is good the way it is.”

The look the two of them shared right then… it was something else.  Not even her parents ever looked at each other like this.  Not even that famous old soulmate couple who lived on her block—the ones who met at age five and died at age one hundred and five within an hour of each other—ever looked at each other like this.

This was something Jane thought she never should have seen; something intimate and private between two people who were truly made for each other.  This was how soulmates were supposed to be, and here was Jane, just a random stranger with words on her hips.  Jane, who had watched more than one lover walk away because they found someone they could love more than her. 

Jane, who fate dictated to be with these two men who already had each other.

If she hadn’t been there, they probably would’ve kissed.  Jane wanted to excuse herself and go take the stairs again, but it was another overhead announcement that the two of them were needed that saved her.   

“Once again, duty calls,” Bucky sighed.  He smiled once at Jane before Steve took his wrist and pulled him along.

“Get some rest for that throat, Doctor,” Steve said.

Though the elevator arrived just moments later, Jane didn’t get in.  She watched them go until they disappeared from view, and she missed it.  She was alone as she’d ever been, thinking about today and the day before that and every other day since this whole mess started.  Over and over again, she replayed all their touches and their smiles and their words of love, all of which could only have ever been for each other.

And she wondered why they would ever need a third.

Why they would ever need _her_.


	4. You're the Prettiest Girl

Jane stripped off her shirt and pants as she entered the bathroom.  She’d just made a major breakthrough in her research, but before she could go out and celebrate with Tony and Darcy, she needed to wash off all the sweat and filth.  Nobody wanted to be seen around some slobby Pig Pen type who hadn’t had a proper bath in three days.

Whistling happily to herself, Jane removed her bra and panties and threw them into the corner.  Fully naked, she pushed back the shower curtain, only to choke and nearly trip.

Steve and Bucky were tangled up in each other’s arms, wet from the steaming water raining down on them as they passionately kissed.  They were glorious in their nakedness, though Jane’s view was somewhat marred by how closely they pressed up again each other.

“Oh, hey there, Jane,” Bucky said, breaking the kiss.  “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

So shocked was she, Jane didn’t even think to cover herself.  She stood there, bare and exposed, the steam from the hot water counteracting the cold air nipping at her backside.

“Th-this is my bathroom,” she stammered.  “Why are you two in my bathroom?”

Bucky looked confused.  “You mean this isn’t ours?  Hey, punk, we got the wrong place!”

“I guess we did,” Steve said, shrugging his huge and incredible shoulders.  “Oh well, no helping it now.”

“Yeah, guess not.”  Bucky looked back at Jane, eyes darkening.  “You know, Jane, there’s plenty of room for one more.”

Jane swallowed.  Her whole body felt hot now, and it was no longer because of the steam.

“You should join us, Jane,” Steve said.  He reached out to grab her wrist.  Bucky took the other, and together they pulled her slowly towards them.

“Come join us, Jane.  You know you want to..."

Jane shot up in bed, panting heavily and sweating like a pig.  According to the clock, it was right after five in the morning.  She was twisted around in her sheets and her nightshirt was riding up to her chin.  She groaned and slammed her fist into the pillow.  This was the fifth time in two days!

“I’m losing my mind,” Jane cried out, crossing her legs in a vain attempt to smother her intense arousal.  _“I’m losing my mind!”_

_**_

Jane’s new routine was simple.  She woke up, she went to her lab, she stayed in her lab, she went to her apartment, she went to bed. 

This was how she spent the next three days.  She cooked all her own food and brought a blanket and pillows into the lab in case she needed a nap.  Since isolating herself, she had gotten so much done that she could probably take a whole month off and come back to find that she was barely behind schedule.  Throwing herself into work had always been her go-to method for coping with stressful situations.  The first time she almost lost her funding, she wrote up fifty pages of notes based on a day’s worth of data in one night.  When Donald left her, she finished the half hour long speech she was to give to a class of undergrads with a week to spare.  Just about the only time before now that it didn’t work was when SHIELD seized her equipment in Puente Antiguo, and that was only because there was no work to bury herself in.

As if all of that madness wasn’t bad enough, the dawn of the fourth day saw the door slamming open and a stony faced Darcy stalking inside.

“What’s this about you going out with your guys and not telling me?”

“Hi Darcy, good morning to you, too,” Jane said.  She didn’t look away from the prototype bridge model on the screen.  “And how do you know about that?”

“Jane, you went on a date with Captain America and the Winter Soldier,” Darcy deadpanned.  “People are going to notice that.  You’re lucky you didn’t end up on the front page of the papers.”

“That wouldn’t have happened,” Jane said.  “We stayed in the tower… and it wasn’t a date, Darcy.  We had lunch together, and we did it as friends, okay?  Just friends.”

“Uh, Jane?  We’re talking about your soulmates here!”  Darcy cried.  “There is no such thing as ‘just friends.’”

Rolling her eyes, Jane grabbed her old notebook and walked to the far end of the lab by the window.  She opened the book to a random page, reading off a line of equation that she’d already copied into her laptop ages ago.

“And isn’t it so convenient,” Darcy said loudly as she followed her, “that of all the days for it to happen, it would be the one when you couldn’t talk to them. Lucky you, right?”

“That’s not the word I would use,” Jane asked.

“Well, why not?”  Darcy spat.  “You got the best of both worlds, didn’t you?  You got to spend time with them _and_ string them along at the same time!”

“ _Excuse me?_   I am not stringing them along,” Jane said, getting up so fast it was a wonder she even bothered to sit at all.  “What has gotten into you, Darcy?  For the past few weeks, you’ve either been ignoring me or glaring at me every time I see you, and now you come barging in here just to yell at me?”

“Because you’re acting like a stupid little kid who needs to be yelled at!”  Darcy got right up in Jane’s face, her own fast turning red with anger.  “I know you think you’re being all self-sacrificing and shit, but do you have any idea what you’re doing to them by playing this game?  You’re their soulmate, Jane!  You’re their third!  Without you, they are incomplete.  Do you understand me?  They _need_ you!”

“But that’s just it, Darcy!”  Jane threw her notebook to the ground.  “They _don’t_ need me.  They really don’t.  Haven’t you seen them together?  They are so inseparable it’s a wonder they don’t spontaneously merge together into one entity.  Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes have eyes only for each other and that’s not going to change because of me.  I don’t know why I have their writing on me or why they have mine, but I know who I am and I know who they are, and all I would be to them is an intruder.  An outsider.  I don’t belong with them and I never will.”

Jane’s throat burned from yelling as she glared Darcy down with a month’s worth of frustration, finally bursting forth like soda from a bottle that had been shaken too hard.

“So if you think you’re going to live out your stupid sex fantasies through me, you’d better think again.”

Jane stomped off, stopping at the nearest table to catch her breath.  She put her head in her hands.  Her eyes welled up with unshed tears and she could feel a heavy weight in her throat, constricting her breathing.  Her misery now was two-fold.  She had found out that her soulmates could carry on just fine without her (just like everyone else she ever loved), and now, she’d hurt her best friend in the world, all because she couldn’t get over her own petty problems.  If Darcy left now, Jane wouldn’t blame her. 

She did hear Darcy’s footsteps, but they were getting closer instead of farther away.  Another sound soon joined them; that of a squeaking wheel as Darcy pulled up a chair.  They sat for a long time not speaking, the ticking of the clock the only sound amid dead silence. 

“Jane, can I tell you something?” Darcy asked, in a heavy voice as if speaking at all had just become a great chore.  “Something I’ve never told anyone before?”

Jane lifted her head and stared straight ahead, and this must have been a good enough answer for Darcy.

“I used to have a soulmark.”

Jane’s eyes snapped to her.  “You what?”

“Uh-huh,” Darcy said.  She pulled down her sweater to expose the clear skin over her collarbone.  “It was right here a little to the left.  I had it from the day I was born.  Then one morning when I was twelve, I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth.  Suddenly, right before my eyes, it just… vanished.  Like it had never been there at all.”

Darcy told the story like it meant nothing, just one of those things that happened on a day and made a good anecdote to entertain people at parties.  Jane could not say she was all that entertained hearing it.  She had done her research into soulmates, first for school and then for pleasure.  She knew there was only one reason why a person’s mark would spontaneously erase.

“Oh…” Jane moved closer to Darcy, taking her by the hands.  “Oh Darcy, I’m so sorry.  I had no idea.”

“Don’t get all sentimental on me,” Darcy said.  “You’ll start to sound like my parents.  Did you know they actually made me go to this support group for people who lost their soulmates?  I mean, Christ, I’d never even met the guy!  I don’t know who he was or what he was like or even what his name was.  I don’t even know if it was a guy at all, seeing as I’ve found that I like a little bit of both.”

She let out a sigh as she slid down in her seat.  Her thick mass of hair hid her face in shadow.

“But you know, even after all these years, I still remember what that mark said,” Darcy looked up with a broken smile.  “‘You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.’  Can you believe there was someone who would’ve said that to me?”

This time, Darcy took hold of Jane’s hand.  She cupped it, sighing heavily.

“So when I say that you need to tell them, it’s not for me, Jane, it’s for you.  Take it from someone who knows: you could lose them at any time.  Something could happen when you least expect it, and the next thing you know, you’re all alone.  Especially two guys like them who risk their lives on a daily basis.  If something ever did happen to them, wouldn’t you rather live on with happy memories instead of none?  It’s like that thing people say: better to have loved and lost, right?”

“Than to have never loved at all,” Jane whispered.

She didn’t feel Darcy release her hand, or herself lift up onto her feet.  She was only conscious of how close she was to the exit once she was halfway there, and by then, she didn’t want to stop.  She pressed on, still fearful, but resolute, and she didn’t turn around even to speak to Darcy.

“I think I’ll go talk to them.”

She only felt the atmosphere around her young friend brighten, but she heard the loud whoop she gave clear as a bell.

“Atta girl, Janie!  Go get those studmuffins!”

Jane laughed as she opened the door and stepped out.  She stopped short of closing it, and after a tick, spun around.

“And Darcy?” she said.  “You really are a pretty girl.  Someday, someone will tell you that, and they’ll mean it just as much as any soulmate would.”

She left before Darcy could answer.  She didn’t see the look of shock on Darcy’s face that soon gave way to a teary smile.

_**_

Jane ran to the control room.  She knew it was the place she was most likely to find them.  This time of day, even if there wasn’t anyone in need of saving, the team would meet to discuss current happenings and the possibility of uncovered threats.  Unless there was an emergency, only two or three and a time could be expected, but that number always included Steve, and if it included Steve, it would include Bucky.  That was Jane’s best chance of finding them together, and so that would be where she looked for them now.

Along the way, she took note of every location she passed, from the elevator room where they first said her words, to the lounge where she almost met Bucky after, to the gym where they trained together.  Every spot told a different story, and each story brought her closer and closer to this point.  She was going to go to them; she was going to say the words that she’d always been meant to say, and she wasn’t going to let any fears or inferiority complex stop her.  Whatever happened after, she would roll with the punches.  At least it would be over with.  At least they would know.  And if luck was on Jane’s side, she would come out of this happier than she’d ever been.  All three of them would.

 _‘I wonder what I should say,’_ she thought as she turned a corner and swerved to avoid a passerby.  _‘Should I talk to them one at a time or together?  I hope I don’t get tongue-tied and say something stupid.  Maybe I should just say it._  “Hi, I’m Jane, and I’m your soulmate.”   _Or maybe I should be more creative than that.’_

The control room was in sight.  Jane broke into a sprint.  She ran right by an agent who tried to get into her path, because civilian residents were prohibited from entering this wing of the building, and she would have to turn back.  Jane left him and his worthless rules in the dust.  She threw open the door and ran inside to find a bunch of men and women sitting at a control panel with headsets in their ears.  Tony and Natasha stood at the head of a round table, the latter similarly speaking into a microphone. 

“Where are they?”  Jane slowed to a stop as her legs burned from exertion.  When this was over, she’d have to ask Steve and Bucky to help her get back into shape.  That should make for a lot of fun and exciting soulmate bonding—and not just for obvious reasons.

“Er- hi, Jane,” Tony said, waving her over.  “Did you need something?”

“I need to see Ste- I mean, I need to see Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes right away.  It’s very important.”

Tony and Natasha shared a glance.

“I’m sorry, Jane, you just missed them,” said Natasha.  “They left about an hour ago.  We got a tip this morning on the location of Baron Zemo’s latest hideout, and they’re going to check it out as we speak.”

Just like that, Jane’s swelling heart popped and deflated like an old balloon.  Her shoulders sagged as she sat against the wall.

_‘The one time I actually want to find them?  Just my rotten luck.’_

“I see,” she said glumly.  “Do you know when they’ll be back?”

“Depends on what they find,” said Natasha.  “We’re not expecting more than a day or two, but these things can take as long as a week depending on how well hidden the target is.”

“How often does that happen?”

“Hard to say,” Natasha said, tapping her headset, “but we’ll find out soon enough.  If you really need to talk to them, I’ve got them on the line right now.”

“Thanks, but I think what I have to say is best done in person.”

Jane turned away, walking slowly out of the room as Steve’s voice rang out overhead.  He was reciting some codes and military jargon before giving Natasha a rundown of their current position.

“We just passed the border between France and Germany, flying over a forested area.  Should reach our destination soon.”

“Do you have an ETA?” Natasha asked.

There was a few seconds of static, and then: “I’d say about twenty minutes… hang on, I’m getting something on the radar.  It’s coming in from the side-“

The next burst of static was so loud, that even without a headset, Jane’s ears were ringing.  Those who had them ripped them out as the noise grew louder in big, explosion-like surges.  Steve was still talking through the chaos, but his words were unintelligible.  Someone else was shouting in the background, a mix of cursing and what sounded like Russian before a long string of gunfire went off.  With each new sound came another cold chill running down Jane’s spine. 

“What’s going on?” she asked.  She spoke to no one in particular as the entire room seemed to forget that she was there. 

“Quinjet Five, this is base, please respond,” Natasha shouted into her headset.  She had her hands on the table as she fidgeted with the mic.  Tony had left her side to take over one of the stations at the control panel.  “I repeat, this is base.  Quinjet Five, please respond.  Steve, tell me what’s happening.”

The static built up one more time, then grinded to a halt.  The sounds of crashing and bullets filtered through the speakers unobstructed. 

“We’ve been hit!”  Steve yelled.  “There’s enemy aircrafts on all sides and they’ve opened fire.  The main engine is damaged and the auxiliary is losing power fast.  We’ve returned fire, but more are coming.”

Another crash rocked the control room and disrupted the signal.  Steve’s voice became distorted, as did Bucky’s.  He was saying something about needing more ammo, before another explosion drowned him out.

“We’re going to need some backup over here,” Steve said, followed by a second crash and then a siren.  “It’s no good.  We’ve been hit again.  Base, stay close.  I’m going to attempt an emergency-“

More static cut Steve off, followed by a pop like a lightbulb going out.  Then… nothing.  Not a sound emitted from the speakers.  It was all as still as the grave.

“Quinjet Five, report,” Natasha said, gripping the table so tight that her knuckles were white.  “Quinjet Five, do you copy?  Answer me!”

“What happened to them?”  Jane raced across the room.  Tony met her halfway, blocking her view of Natasha as she removed her headset.  “Tony, let go.  Let me g- _will someone please tell me what’s happening?”_

“We don’t really know ourselves, Jane,” Tony said.  He wrapped large hands around Jane’s forearms, holding her in place as she struggled fruitlessly for freedom.  “You need to calm down.”

“I CAN’T CALM DOWN!”  Jane beat her fists into Tony’s chest, calling upon strength she never knew she had to get him off of her.  Tony backed off, allowing Jane the space she needed to rush at Natasha.  An entire group of highly trained secret agents and one superhero looked ready to void themselves with fear as tiny scientist Jane Foster grabbed Natasha Romanov by her shirt and shook her for all she was worth.  “You’re going to tell me what’s going on right now, or I swear to god…”

Natasha took her by the shoulders, giving her an icy look that immediately turned soft once Jane caught her breath and let go.  Her arms hung limp at her sides.  The two women stared at each other, saying nothing as the crowd slowly dispersed.  Tony appeared in Jane’s peripheral vision, and he took her hand.

“Let’s get you out of here,” he said. 

He started to pull Jane away, and though her feet moved, she didn’t turn around.

“You have to find them,” she told Natasha, her vision clouded as moisture dripped down her cheeks.  “You hear me?  You’d better find them and bring them back.  Bring them back!”

Tony stepped out into the hall, closing and locking the door behind him.  Jane’s wrist was still caught in his tight grip, but she had lost the energy to fight him.  She felt like screaming and punching a wall until her bones shattered and her muscles tore.  Steve’s last words replayed in her head with increasingly volume and desperation, overlaid with Darcy’s words.

_“Something could happen when you least expect it, and the next thing you know, you’re all alone.”_

“Jane?”  Tony’s real voice cut through the illusory ones, but only just.  Jane’s eyes on him were unseeing.  “Hey, you in there?  Jane?”

Jane shook her head.  “You have to go back in there and help find them, Tony.  Don’t worry about me, just find them.”

“I’m going to do everything I can,” Tony said, as if offended that she would imply any less.  “We all are.  I just don’t understand when you got to caring about Cap and Barnes so much.”

“What are you talking about?” Jane snapped.  “Of course I care about them, they’re my… they’re my…”

The dam broke.  Just like that, Jane could no longer form coherent words or sentences.  She fell into Tony’s arms, her friend caught off guard and almost dropping her.  He grabbed the window sill with his free hand to keep them upright, as Jane buried her face into his chest and sobbed her heart out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the cliffhanger. This is the main reason I was a bit unsure about splitting this story up. The next and final part will be posted in just two days, so look out for it!


	5. Don't Say a Word

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading this far, and I hope you enjoy the thrilling conclusion!

Three days went by. Jane spent them in her lab, though she didn't even pretend to be working. She curled up by the window, watching the empty sky for a hint of an aircraft. She only ate what Darcy brought her, slept only when exhaustion set in. Every time she heard an alarm or the voice of Tony's A.I., she jumped. She prayed for some kind of word that they were safe, that they were alive and coming back. Always, she was let down. There hadn't been a word from them since the tower lost contact.

Somehow, they'd been able to keep it out of the news. Everyone who worked at the tower was under an airtight non-disclosure contract regarding Avengers business, but leaks could still happen. They had in the past, and for something like this, it was inevitable that it would happen again. So far, it had been prevented, but as efforts for find Steve and Bucky tripled, it couldn't stay as such for long. Already, people were talking about their absence. Theories ranged from a secret mission to kidnapping by HYDRA.

Other than Darcy, Tony was the only one to check on her regularly. He gave her whatever updates he could, no matter how minor. So far, they had found the downed quinjet with no one inside. Some bodies discovered near the scene were full of bullets that matched Bucky's firearms, while others bore large marks and bruises that could only have come from Steve's shield. There were some footprints, but the rescue crew could only follow them so far before the blistering cold became too much. It was so cold out there, that the average man would be dead in an hour.

"But you have to remember, Jane, they're not average," Tony said. "Their bodies can withstand far more than yours or mine can. So don't give up, okay? Don't give up."

He'd taken the news of Jane's soulmark quite well. Though it came from Darcy, and she only knew so much of the story, he didn't press Jane for more. He just patted her on the back as she curled into a ball on her bed, and promised that they would do all they could.

On the dawn of the fourth day, he brought her a breakfast bun and some coffee. He nursed a cup while Jane bit into the warm dough and swallowed without taking time to savor the taste.

"I feel like everything's stopped," she rasped. She'd barely spoken a word in days. "Like I can't see color anymore if that makes sense. I keep telling myself how crazy this is. I barely knew them at all, yet here I am falling apart because I don't know if I'll ever see them again."

"It's a soulmate thing," Tony said. "That's the best I can figure. When I was in captivity, I used to have nightmares about Pepper growing old and dying without me. They tortured me, and I heard her voice in my head every time. Getting back to her was what kept me going."

"I thought you guys weren't together back then," Jane said.

Tony shook his head. "Yeah, that was stupid of us. Obviously, we'd known we were soulmates for years, but me being the idiot I was, I thought one night stands with a different woman each night was more fulfilling than a real connection with one person. Pepper always said she didn't mind and that we were better off having a professional relationship, but I think she was hurting the whole time. I'm just glad I got a clue before it was too late."

"You two are a great couple," Jane said. She looked out the window one more time, but there wasn't even a cloud to be seen for miles. "I just hope I'm not too late."

She raised the hem of her shirt on the left hand side. Bucky's messy letters stretched across her hip, spelling out the same sarcastic question. To her right, Steve's apology was written in cursive. Nothing had changed since the last time she looked. That meant they were alive, at least for now.

"I feel like such an idiot," she said, rocking back and forth. "Three weeks I waited. Three whole weeks where I could have told them, and I didn't. All because I was afraid. I was just so stupid and afraid."

Her head dropped between her legs, but her eyes remained dry. She had cried so much that her tears ducts were all dried up.

"Darcy tried to tell me. She knew this could've happened. I should've listened. I should've-"

Something warm pressed into her hand, and it took her a while to realize that it was Tony. His fingers wrapped around hers as he gave her a meaningful look, the kind that reminded her of how much older he was than her.

"You can't change the past, Jane," he said. "Believe me, I know. There is a whole laundry list of things I would change about my life if I could, but I know that I can't. I can't because time travel is impossible. The science just doesn't work. Other than that, you just have to learn to move forward. Sometimes, that's all you can do."

"But I don't know if I can do it alone."

Tony's cell phone rang in his pocket. He didn't bother checking the call ID before answering it.

"Yeah?" The voice on the other end was indistinguishable, and spoke a mile a minute. To Jane's ears, it was little more than meaningless squeaking, but then Tony broke out in a wide grin. "Okay, I'll be right there."

He shut the phone off.

"Jane, honey, you're not gonna have to."

**

She ran faster than she ever had in her life. So fast that the world became a blur of light and color, and anyone who happened to be walking by would surely marvel at the sight of a human sized bullet that just missed hitting them.

She took the stairs to the roof—the elevators were just too slow—and on the very top step, she saw the small crowd gathered around a helicopter. It was of an unfamiliar make with German writing on the side, along with several dents and scratches like it had been the scene of an intense fight. Someone hung out of the side by the door. He jumped down as the helicopter touched down and the pilot descended.

They both looked awful, beaten up and exhausted. Steve's uniform was shredded at the sleeves and there was a gash in arm that dripped blood down to his elbow. He walked slowly, favoring his right side. His shield was at his side and coated with mud. Bucky had fared no better. Though he supported Steve on the one side, his hair was a mess and there were scratches and cuts all over his face. One across the cheek looked like it might scar, but if it did it would only accentuate his attractiveness.

In Jane's eyes, they had never looked better. They were magnificent, like two handsome knights.

"Should've known you two would make a mess of things," Natasha said, beaming happily behind her harsh words.

Steve clapped her on the shoulder. "Well, we couldn't call our ride."

"Those bastards shot us out of the air," Bucky explained. "So we hiked it the rest of the way and infiltrated the base. Zemo wasn't there, but we took the place down anyway."

"Then you stole the helicopter?"

"That's a whole other story," said Steve, while Bucky snickered behind him. "I'm sorry if we worried anyone."

"Then you should apologize first to Dr. Foster," said Natasha. "I don't know what you guys are up to with her, but she was hysterical when we lost contact."

"She was?" Bucky blinked as he and Steve shared a questioning look.

Taking that as her cue, Jane stepped out of the crowd. Her face was numb from the cold, but she'd found that she was wrong about having no more tears to shed. The two of them looked down at her, brows furrowed like they didn't know what to say. And that was fine by her. It was her turn to do the talking anyway. She took a running leap, landing right between them where she could hug them both for all they were worth. They were so big that she could hardly get her arms around them, but Jane would make due.

So long as she could feel them.

So long as they were alive and warm and strong against her.

Too incoherent yet to speak, Jane settled for showering them with kisses, starting with Bucky, moving on to Steve, then back to Bucky, and so on. She kissed their lips and their cheeks and their noses and anything else she could reach, while they stood there, too bewildered by the onslaught to try and stop it.

"Er… Dr. Foster?" Steve gasped after one very lengthy kiss.

Jane let go. She looked up at Steve and his adorably confused face, and then she smacked him right across the cheek.

"Don't you ever, _ever_ scare me like that again."

If he was going complain about the slap, hearing that shut him right up. His mouth hung open soundlessly, making him identical to Bucky.

"What did you say?" he asked.

Jane turned to him now, smiling through her tears. She took Bucky's hands, rubbing the knuckles of the metal one tenderly.

"Something I should have said a long time ago," she said. "I'm so sorry I didn't."

"Ah…" He was going to catch flies if he kept that up. They both were. And Jane didn't want an audience for the conversation that was to follow, so she let go of one of Bucky's hands and took Steve's.

"I think we should go somewhere more private," she said.

"Sounds good," Steve said in a daze. He was at least in a better state than Bucky, who couldn't do more than stare as Jane led them off the landing pad, passed the bemused crowd which included a dumbfounded Natasha and a proudly grinning Tony.

"Okay," Natasha said, "does someone want to tell me what just happened?"

"Agent Romanov," Tony said as they watched the trio disappear through the door to the elevators, "it's just a soulmate thing."

**

They couldn't go straight back to their place. Not when there were still some minor injuries to be attended to. Luckily the two men's enhanced DNA meant that healing a few cuts would be a walk in the park. Their detour to the hospital wing only took ten minutes, as Steve and Bucky were bandaged and given a quick check up to ensure their good health, while Jane stayed patiently in the waiting room.

Their apartment was much bigger than hers, and decidedly modern in décor. Aside from a few old-fashioned couch throws and a record player in the corner ("The sound is better," Bucky explained), it was no different from any other New York City dwelling. There was a flat screen TV with a stack of DVDs and blu-rays. The kitchen on the right was full of appliances that looked barely used. The sofa Jane sat on looked new, but felt like it had been well broken in. Some part of Jane wondered what kind of things went on in this couch, but that particular brain-frying question was best saved for another day.

She observed the two men on either side of her, trying not to react to how intently they watched her. Not a word was exchanged between them. Since arriving, Steve had softly inquired if Jane wanted something to drink, and said nothing more after her even softer refusal.

Jane held a couch pillow in her lap, hugging it to her chest as she sucked in a breath.

"I guess I should start," she said. She got no answer. They were waiting on her. "Well… as I'm sure you both remember I walked in on you in the elevator room about three weeks ago. You both spoke to me, and well…"

Jane lifted her shirt and pulled down her pants at the side, revealing Bucky's words first before getting up to show Steve's. His fingers brushed the mark, sending a jolt through her that wasn't unpleasant.

"So ever since then, you've known we were your soulmates," Bucky said. "For three weeks now, and you didn't say anything."

Jane looked down. His words were not spoken in anger, or disdain, or even all that harshly. If anything, they were… matter-of-fact. Just a statement of the obvious. Somehow, that brought Jane to shame even more than yelling would have.

"Yes," she said softly. "I've known ever since."

"You knew that night at the restaurant?" Steve asked, leaning forward. "And the day we all had lunch?"

Jane closed her eyes. She wanted nothing more than to melt away into the floor and disappear. She couldn't even look at them anymore.

"But I don't understand," Steve said. "Why didn't you tell us?"

This was it, the part she'd been dreading. The part where she would have to spill her guts to them and hope for the best. They might hate her, they might laugh at her, they might confirm that she was right and they really didn't want her, but there was no turning back now.

Jane took a deep breath.

"The truth is… I was scared." She opened her eyes, but didn't look up yet. "I've seen you two around, the way you are together. For a long time, I used to look at you and think, 'wow, I wish I could find someone who would love me like that.' I've always had my soulmarks ever since I was born, but I never imagined that I would ever find them, let alone that it would be anyone like you. Now, all I can think about is how… perfect you are. You guys may not realize it, but you really are an ideal couple. You're always so happy, and you've spent years fighting and surviving together. How could I ever compare to that? It's like taking a puzzle that's already finished and trying to add more pieces."

Jane wiped away a few stray tears, doing her best to suck the rest of them in.

"When I was in college, I had this boyfriend, Donald Blake. He had a mark, but he said that he didn't care about it. He wanted to fall in love based on a person's character. Then one night, he took me to this fancy restaurant for an anniversary dinner, and the waitress turned out to be his soulmate. He tried to deny for a while and stay with me, but he still hung out with her, and I could see that they were better for each other than Donald and I had ever been. It was more than the mark. It was the way talked to each other. The way they were together. It was… kind of how you guys are. I knew that I had to let him go, and so I did. Ever since then, every time I thought I found someone who would love me, someone else always comes along. I learned that no matter what, I would never come first for anyone. I would always be left by the wayside. It's happened over and over again, and I guess I just… I can't imagine another way that this can end. Not when you already have each other.

"So that's why I didn't tell you," she finished, choking back a small sob. "Because you don't need me."

She buried her face in her hands, her throat aching and her eyes burning. She still didn't cry, not yet. She'd wait to be alone, after she ran out of here back to her room and locked all the doors behind her. Yes, that was probably the best thing for all of them. She'd just get up off this couch and…

Except she couldn't get up. She couldn't move at all. She was sandwiched between two heavy weights pressing into her on either side, right over her marks. Steve and Bucky looked down at her, resting their hands on her lap. There crystal blue eyes were clear and expressive, though Jane couldn't say for sure just what they were expressing. All she knew was that they were even more beautiful up close, and she wanted to cry all over again.

Bucky fingers found her cheek, stopping at her chin to make her look at him.

"Dr. Fost-" he stopped short. _"_ _Jane._ Can I tell you something?"

Jane bit her lip. She struggled to take a deep breath as she nodded. Bucky came in close. He smelled amazing.

"This guy," he whispered right by her ear. "He drives me _crazy_ _."_

Jane blinked. Blinked again.

"Half the time, I want to kill him. You have no idea."

"No idea at all," Steve agreed, his hands reaching for her shoulders. "We've torn this place apart a hundred times."

"You may think we have this perfect life and never argue," Bucky said, "but that's just because you've never gotten us alone. When we want to, we can really go at it."

"One time, Bucky threw the refrigerator at me."

Jane gawked at Steve. "He _what?"_

"Yup. The whole refrigerator. Ripped it right out of the wall and threw it at my head."

"I knew you'd dodge it," Bucky said, crossing his arms over his chest. "You deserved it anyway. You wrecked my favorite gun."

"I did not, the guy who shot it out of my hand did."

"That's why I'm never lending you a gun ever again."

Steve gave him a shove, which was returned. Bucky took Jane back from Steve's arms, all but pulling her onto his lap.

"How about the time you locked me out on the balcony for an hour without my coat?"

Jane looked at him expectantly, and Steve shrugged sheepishly.

"I was angry. Didn't want him in the bedroom."

Bucky squeezed Jane's hand.

"So you get it, right? We're not perfect like you think we are. We fight, and we yell and scream and we do stupid things that we have to beg forgiveness for later. We're just like everyone else, Jane."

"Well, almost," Jane murmured. "Most people can't throw refrigerators."

The two men laughed. The sound reverberated through Jane's body, reminding her of just how squished together they were.

"But Jane, you have to understand that this isn't just about you," Steve said. He pulled one leg up on the couch and lifted the leg of his pants. There was Jane's writing wrapped around his ankle. "We've worn your marks even longer than you wore ours. Sometimes, we'd sit up at night and talk about you, wondering what you'd be like."

"And you know, I think we've known for a while that it was you," Bucky said thoughfully. "Can't think of why else we'd be dreaming of you."

Jane stared at him. "You dreamed about me?"

Bucky smirked, wriggling his eyebrows, and Jane instantly knew that his dreams were no more innocent than hers.

"Last night, I dreamt we were all on the beach together. You were wearing one of those stringy bikini things and you were all wet and running-"

"Do I really want to hear this?"

"Yes, it was a good dream. You looked fantastic."

"I dreamed about you in one of my old USO shows," Steve piped in. "You were one of the showgirls."

"That doesn't sound too bad," Jane said.

Steve grinned. "Right, and then at the end, it was just you on stage, and you started to take the costume off one piece at a time-"

"Okay, that's enough." Jane hid her face in the couch cushion, this time only so they couldn't see her blush.

"No, no," said Bucky. "I want to hear more of this. Damn punk got the good dream."

Once more, they dissolved into laughter. To her surprise, Jane found herself joining in despite her. She sat back against Bucky, his cold metal arm cooling her through his thin shirt. The rest of him was decidedly warmer, not to mention hard as a rock. Jane raked her fingers down his shirt and stomach, marveling at the feel of his muscles. She stopped at his abs; god, he was unreal. Another point for Darcy.

It took time for them to calm down after that. They'd been distracted so many times that Jane almost forgot what they were talking about. As she caught her breath and felt her start to calm, it instantly sped back up thanks to Bucky. He had turned her to face him, his eyes so blue she could get lost in them. Steve closed in on her back, pressing into her, and just like that, she was captured.

"The important thing, Jane," Bucky said thickly, "is that I never want to hear you say you don't belong here ever again. You do. You belong with us. We want you and we need you. We always have."

"We've waited a long time for you," Steve said, his arms coming around her and his lips grazing her neck. "Now that we have you, don't think you can stay away from us."

"I don't," Jane breathed. She sighed as Steve moved up to her ear and nipped the lobe with his teeth. "Not anymore."

"Glad to hear it," said Bucky, and then those deep, deep eyes came alight with something new. Something Jane recognized from all those held gazes with Steve that once she envied. "Now that we've settled that, how about Stevie and I take you to the bedroom, and show you just how wanted you are?"

"I like the sound of that," said Steve, his grip on her tightening. "I know I want her more than anything right now."

Before Jane knew it, she was in the air. Steve carried her bridal style out of the living room through an open doorway. Bucky walked beside them, holding Jane's hand and giving her a smoldering look that made the rapidly building heat within her blaze into an inferno.

"Don't worry, Jane, we're going to take very good care of you," he said huskily. "This'll be a night you'll never forget."

"It already is."

They arrived to a large master bedroom with an enormous bed in the center. Steve carefully laid her over of the sheets, his hand running down the length of her torso, stopping at the waistband of her jeans. Bucky, clearly the bolder of the two, had already snapped the button open.

"Oh god," Jane gasped as his fingers reached down past her panties. She moaned and writhed as Steve got into bed behind her, resuming his assault on her neck. At one point, as Bucky pushed deep into her core, he let out a moan of his own.

"God, I missed women," he said. "So glad we got one as beautiful as you."

He withdrew his hand, much to Jane's disappointment, and quickly removed his shirt and his pants before getting in at Jane's front. She knew she'd find herself in this position a lot, there in between them. Not intruding as she had feared, but completing.

"Bucky," she said, not knowing which of the millions thing she wanted to tell them should come out first. "Steve, I-"

Bucky shushed her, first with his finger, then with a kiss. He kissed her so sweetly, his tongue coaxing from her more shameless sounds of pleasure than Jane ever knew she could make.

"It's okay, doll," he said, as Steve let her go long enough for them to strip her of her clothes. "We already know. Don't say a word."

**

Jane cracked one eye open as the sun streamed in from the window. She had trouble raising her head to meet it with two large and muscular arms draped over her. Steve was snoring in front of her, lying on his stomach with the blankets down to his legs. Jane admired the view for a time, and then turned to Bucky. His human arm was tucked under his head, and a few strands of hair had fallen over his peacefully sleeping face. Jane started to brush them away, and then he took her gently by the wrist.

"Sleep well?" he asked drowsily.

Jane lay back down, sinking into his embrace. "Better than I ever have before."

"And did we keep our promise?"

"Oh yeah," Jane giggled. "I am never going to forget last night for sure."

It would be the first of many unforgettable nights, she knew. Of falling asleep between these wonderful men, exhausted and sated, only to wake up with the sensations of their touch still on her skin, a wall of muscle on either side of her. If there was a heaven, it couldn't possibly compare to this.

"And where are you going?" Bucky grabbed for Jane as she shimmied out of bed, but she avoided him.

"I need the bathroom," she said over her shoulder. "So you'll have to wait."

"Better not be waiting too long, doll, because we are in no way finished with you."

A shiver of anticipation shot through Jane, compacted by Bucky choosing to sit up so that his entire naked body was on full display. So great was the distraction that Jane narrowly avoided running into a wall. She had a feeling this would become a common occurrence, but that was okay. She'd learn fast to give as good as she got.

 _'How could I have ever doubted them?'_ she wondered, happy at least to know that she would never make the same mistake again. That alone made it all worthwhile.

"By the way, Jane," said Steve. When he had woken up, Jane didn't know. Maybe he had been awake from the start. "You never told us what kind of dreams you had about us."

Jane looked at him, then at Bucky, and then at the roomy shower stall in the corner of the bathroom.

She smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And they all lived happily ever after.
> 
> Very happily, if you catch my drift.


	6. Epilogue: A Happy Ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to do another chapter, but then a comment by TheHappyEgg gave me this idea, and I had to run with it.

A gale of laughter drew Darcy up from her reading. She observed the next table over, where Jane had dabbed a bit of chocolate ice cream onto Bucky's nose. Hers had been painted already with vanilla, and now it appeared they were ganging up on Steve. While Bucky held his arms, Jane attacked with a spoonful of strawberry.

They were a bunch of crazy, wacky dorks, all three of them.

Darcy had been in the cafeteria for an hour, even though she finished her dinner thirty minutes ago. She was immersed in her book and had nothing better to do anyway. Now that Jane finally had her boys, she'd had to change her schedule to make room for Steve and Bucky time. That meant a lot less all-night science benders and a lot more date nights, but it was cool. Jane had the happiness she deserved, and Steve and Bucky had the woman of their dreams. Everybody had their happy ending.

Or almost everybody.

Darcy rubbed her collarbone, a little to the left. It was a nervous habit she'd developed over the years. The spot was red when she was done. She was bound to make the whole area sore one day.

"They're something else, those three."

Darcy looked up. The speaker was a handsome dark skinned man carrying a tray with a wrapped sandwich on it. He wore a warm expression, still watching the happy trio and not yet noticing Darcy's eyes on him. He looked so familiar, but for the life of her Darcy couldn't place him.

"Oh wait," she said when it hit her. "You're Sam Wilson, right? The Falcon?"

"That's me," He said, taking a seat. "And of course you're Darcy Lewis, the girl who tasered Thor."

He'd mentioned that once before if Darcy remembered correctly. She rolled her eyes. "I'm never going to live that one down, am I?"

"Hey, it's not a bad legacy to have," Sam said. He started to unwrap his sandwich, then froze. "Oh, uh… is it okay if I sit here?"

"You already are," Darcy said with a snort. "Be kind of rude if I said no now."

She went back to her book, and caught herself reading the same line four times before giving up. She marked her place and set it aside. Jane was now in Bucky's lap, and it appeared he was trying to clean the ice cream off of her with his tongue. Jane shrieked with laughter, trying and failing to slap him away. Her back now facing outward, Darcy could see that she was wearing the shirt Tony got for her birthday last month; the one that read 'WORLD'S MOST BADASS PHYSICIST' on the back. She wondered if Steve or Bucky happened to have their shirts on under their jackets, or was 'PROPERTY OF JANE FOSTER' just too silly a thing.

"They're perfect together, aren't they?" she asked, not really aiming the question at anyone.

"I know those two are happier than they've ever been," Sam said between bites of ham and cheese. "You should see them during practice. Grinning ear to ear, all desperate to finish so they can go find her."

"Yeah, Jane's the same way," Darcy said. "Not gonna lie, it's getting to be annoying."

"I hear you," said Sam. "I even asked Tony for advice. He said it's just a honeymoon phase and they'll calm down after a couple months. Let me tell you, it makes me glad I don't have a mark."

Darcy's face fell as her hand went back to her collarbone.

"Yeah," she said softly. "Me neither."

"You must be beating guys off with a stick then," said Sam.

"Who me?" Darcy gave a laugh and took back her book. "No way. I'm not that lucky."

"That would surprise me. You're sure the prettiest girl I've ever seen."

Darcy dropped her book. It fell to the floor with a thud and her bookmark floated down with it. She'd never be able to find her place and she didn't care. She gaped openly at Sam, his questioning gaze somehow making him more attractive.

"What was that?" she asked.

Sam blinked. "You're very pretty… if you don't mind me saying."

Darcy reached for her collar, stopping herself at the last second. She let her hand drop. She didn't much feel like doing it all of a sudden. Sitting up straight, she flashed Sam a wide smile.

"Do you think you might want to get coffee sometime?"

Sam smiled back, and damn if his wasn't sexy as hell.

"I think I very much would," he said.

Maybe there was a happy ending for Darcy after all.

**THE END**


	7. BONUS SCENE 1: Both is Good

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got some smut prompts on tumblr for this threesome, and both of them ended up being set in this universe. So here they are now for you all to enjoy.
> 
> This first one was requested by thordisx.

They had never tried taking her together before, but it was something they had talked about.

Jane was eager from the start, unafraid to let her boys have their way with her body.  She’d been doing it for over a month already.  The only difference was that now, it would be at the same time.  Her two soulmates, on the other hand, had some reservations.  Bucky felt like the three of them needed more time to learn about their likes and dislikes before they tried something as extreme as this.  Steve worried that Jane was biting off more than she could chew asking for this, and that was ultimately the biggest of their concerns.

No matter how one sliced it, the fact remained that they were two very big men and she was one very small woman.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Jane said, flopping down on the couch.  “Guys, I know you like to call me ‘doll’, but you understand I’m not _literally_ made of porcelain, right?  You can’t break me.”

“If just one of us isn’t careful, we might,” said Steve.  He had his head down.  He hated denying her something she wanted, no matter what it was.

Any other time, Jane might have felt bad about upsetting him.  She might have gone over there and given him the biggest, most passionate kiss she could muster while stroking his thighs and undoing his zipper.  Right now, she was an unholy maelstrom of frustration, anger, and barely controlled horniness.  If she so much as touched him, she was liable to start ripping his clothes off like an animal in heat.  This was the fourth time they had used that tired excuse as a cop out.  Four times they had had this conversation, and it was getting tedious.

“Guys, how many times have we had sex in the past thirty days?  How many positions have we tried?  How many couches, chairs, lab tables, and dressers have we defiled?  How is this any different?”

“For starters, that was always just one of us at a time,” said Steve.  “It’s one thing for Buck to take you while I watch.  It’s another thing entirely for me to be behind you when it’s happening.”

“Who said you get to have her from behind first?” said Bucky.  

Steve shot him a look, red in the face.  “You saying you want to try it?”

Bucky’s grin faltered.

“I don’t know.  Jane has a point, and if it’s really what she wants, then I’m not going to just say no without considering it.”

“Thank you, James,” Jane got up and sat on his lap to give him a long and heated kiss until Steve let out a groan.  

“That’s not fair, Jane,” he said.

“You’re welcome to join in whenever you want.”  

She started unbuttoning Bucky’s shirt, pressing featherlight kisses to each bit of skin she revealed.  Lower and lower she went as his muscles tensed.

“Steve, she’s going to be the death of us,” Bucky moaned.

“I guess that’s why she’s our soulmate,” said Steve.

“I thought I was your soulmate so I could keep the two of you in line,” Jane said, moving down to Bucky’s stomach.

“You’re both wrong,” said Bucky.  He wrapped his big hands around Jane’s waist and pulled her off of him.  The next thing anybody knew, she was on her back and her shirt was off.  “You’re our soulmate so that you can encourage Steve to be a risk taking idiot, because you are also a risk taking idiot, and I have to be the one keeping you both out of trouble.”

“You love us,” Jane said cheekily.

“I’m going to strap the two of you to the bed one of these days.”

“Is that a promise?” 

He took one of Jane’s nipples into his mouth, cutting her off and, from the look of it, nearly driving Steve over the edge with lust.  She heard a tear as his hands on the couch cushions punctured the upholstery.  Tony was going to be so pissed when he saw that.  

“Whenever you’re ready,” Jane sang at him.  

She’d never know what it was that broke him.  Be it her words, or the heavily lidded eyes she sported when saying them.  Or if it was Bucky stopping to strip himself down and then pull off Jane’s pants so he could get his head between her legs and ravish her.  The end result was Steve naked behind her, lubed up fingers pressing at her rear passage as Bucky’s skillful tongue brought her to orgasm.

“Try not to leave any bruises,” Steve gasped.

Jane shook her head wildly.  “James, don’t listen to him.  Steve, shut up.”

“You heard her, punk,” Bucky said before giving Jane’s clit one more lick.  His fingers pressed hard into her thigh until she screamed.  “What our girl wants, our girl gets.”

And there was some logic Steve could never argue with.


	8. BONUS SCENE 2: A Promise is a Promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was requested by an anon. 
> 
> An anon with some very good ideas, as you are about to see.

“I told you guys I’d do it,” Bucky said.

And it was true, he had.  He’d said it numerous times actually.  Any time Jane nearly blew herself up or Steve ran into a gunfight without cover.  Whenever Jane tried to set up her bridge simulator outside in the middle of a lightning storm or Steve drove a motorcycle into an enemy convoy.  Every time, they would hear it again.  They’d been given so many warnings that it shouldn’t have been a surprise at all that one day, Bucky would snap and make good on his promise.  

It was right after the three of them got home from a rather wild adventure in London.  Jane had been forced at gunpoint into a car right before giving her lecture at Oxford.  Shortly thereafter, Steve drove a hijacked double decker bus into the compound where they were holding her, only to get caught in an explosion while fighting ten mooks at once.  They were saved from certain death by Bucky’s swift arrival, guns blazing and out for blood.  He was mercliess as he effortlessly destroyed anyone foolish enough to get in his way.  With Steve over one shoulder and Jane over the other, he carried them out to meet the rest of the assembled heroes and an entire squadron of police officers ready to arrest what few bad guys remained.

Forty eight hours later, Jane awoke to find herself and Steve naked and tied to the bed, Bucky standing over them with a dark expression.

“You didn’t think I’d really do it, did you?”  

He walked around them like a jungle cat on the prowl.  Their eyes followed him.  Steve had woken up before her, and he wasn’t trying to break free of his restraints anymore.  No doubt those handcuffs were fully super soldier proof.

“I had an inkling,” Jane said with a half smile.  “You certainly threatened to enough times.”

“And yet neither one of you ever learn.”  Bucky shook his head.  “You just keep trying to give me a heart attack.”

He stopped next to Jane, his groin inches from her face.  His shirt was off, but he was keeping his pants on for now.  That was unfortunate.

“So what are you going to do to us?” Steve asked.  Unlike Jane, he didn’t even try to hide excited he was.  Not that he could if he wanted to.  His body had long since given him away.  

Bucky eyed his arousal with a hungry gaze.  That look alone made Jane wet with desire.  His eyes flicked to her as he licked his lips.  For now, though, he focused on Steve.

“You need help with that?” he nodded at Steve’s erection.

“If you don’t mind.”

Bucky ambled around the bed and unlocked one of Steve’s cuffs.  He stored the key in his pocket and flopped down on a nearby chair.

“Do it yourself,” he said.  It was a straight order and if that had been Jane, she wouldn’t think twice about obeying him.

“Oh, so you’re in command now?”  Steve quipped.  “You think you have me under control.”

“Well, seeing as you’re tied up and I’m not, I’d say the shoe fits.  Now get to it, soldier.”

“You know I outrank you, right?”

“Don’t talk back to me.  I can cuff you again whenever I want.  Now shut up and do it.”

Steve glanced at Jane, his eyes sparkling.  His free hand slid down passed his abs to the root of his cock and stroked upwards.  He closed his eyes as he moved his hand along his shaft.  Pre-cum beaded at the tip as he went faster and faster.  His moans were rough and heady, and driving Jane mad with need.  She pulled at the handcuffs with all her strength.  That wasn’t saying much, and she remained immobile and desperate.  The delicious sounds Steve made grew more intense, almost like there were two of him.  Jane raised her head and cried out in rage at the sight of Bucky, his pants undone and his cock in his hand.  

“Why didn’t you unlock one of mine, you asshole?”

Bucky laughed and stroked himself slower, just to torture her.  

“Relax, doll, I’ve got something extra special planned for you.”

“Oh, so she gets it special, but I have to take care of myself,” Steve grunted.  He was very close, but it wouldn’t be as satisfying without someone to help him along.  Jane knew that from experience.

“Don’t be like that,” Bucky said.  “I’m gonna fuck you both, and I’m gonna fuck you good.  And I’d better hear a lot of noise coming out of those mouths.  The louder you are, the harder you get it.”

Jane moaned in anguish.  He was _killing_ her.  Is this what it was like for them that time she gave them a lap dance and wouldn’t let them touch her?  Their self control was amazing.

“Okay, I think you guys have suffered enough.”

Bucky got up, letting his pants fall to his feet and casually stepping out of them.  He grabbed Steve’s arm to replace the handcuff first.  He crawled onto the bed in between them, stopping first to admire their flushed faces and quivering forms.  In that moment, they belonged to him, and they knew it.  He leaned to take Steve’s cock in his mouth while inserting cold metal digits into Jane’s entrance.  It didn’t take long after that.

They came at the same time.  Their minds linked for a moment as they reached for each other at the same time.  Jane laced her fingers with Steve’s and squeezed his hand hard as the heat building within her broke and filled her body.  She collapsed on the bed when it was over.  Sweat poured down her brow and heart raced, while Steve gasped for air and shivered, his orgasm still ongoing.  Bucky sat up on his knees, looking over his good work with smug satisfaction.  He crossed his arms over his chest, his muscles bulging with the action.

“Now, are the two of you sorry for constantly worrying me?”

Jane nodded.  Steve just stared at him.  She had long suspected that they shared a secret language only they understood.  They communicated so much to just their eyes and their bodies.  Whole conversations could be had without a word spoken out loud.  Slowly but surely, Jane learned the meaning behind every flick of the eye and flare of the nostrils, and she found more and more reasons to thank the fates above for giving her such incredible men.  

“Looks like you’ve learned your lesson today.  Let’s move on.”  He snaked an arm around Jane’s back, drawing her into his lap.  His cock was rock hard against her thigh.  In his eyes was pure evil.  “You're up first, Janie.”


End file.
